Slate and tile roof construction is labor intensive and requires skilled installers to properly install slate and tile roofing. A particularly difficult part of slate and tile roof construction involves the initial installation of the first row of tiles along the eave of a roof The eave must be protected with a thin protective sheet of a strip of metal. These strips, commonly referred to as “drip edges,” are separately nailed or stapled over the lower edge or eave of a roof prior to any slate or tile installation to protect the eave from water damage due to rain, snow, ice, sleet, etc.
After the drip edge has been installed, a wooden strip known as a cant strip, typically having a square cross section less than one inch per side is secured to the roof by placing the cant strip on top of the drip edge and nailing the cant strip along the lower edge of the roof and through the planar surface of the drip edge which lies directly on top of the underlying eave. The cant strip provides the necessary lift or inclination to the first row of slate tiles with respect to the plane of the roof so that subsequent rows of slate tiles lay down properly on each preceding lower row of tiles.
After the drip edge and cant strip is installed, the first row of tiles is typically manually nailed to the roof with roofing nails. This requires a considerable amount of skill since an installer must apply the proper amount of force to drive a nail through the tile to securely mount the tile to the roof, but not so much force so as to break or crack the tile. The tile must also be preformed with one or more through holes for passage of the nail(s). An installer must hold a tile in place on the cant strip while carefully hammering a nail through the hole in the tile and into the underlying roof. Although conventional nail guns are quicker and easier to use, they can apply too much driving force and thereby damage the slate tiles. Accordingly, slower manual nailing is commonly required.
In accordance with this disclosure, an integral drip edge, cant strip or “kick up” and a plurality of tile retention hooks is installed as a single integral assembly using a conventional nail gun. Experienced slate installers are not required to install a slate roof using the installation system disclosed herein, as there is no requirement to drive nails through the slate tiles held by the retention hooks. Moreover, as there is no need to preform nail holes in the tiles, tiles without installation holes can be used as disclosed herein. This can reduce the cost of the tiles by eliminating the hole punching or hole forming production step. Lower cost labor can be used to install a slate tile roof in a shorter amount of time than a professional slate installer using conventional manual slate installation techniques, thereby resulting in a lower cost slate roof installation.